by Ellen Porath
Janusz had let his gaze wander over the sumptuous hall, stifling with the heat from three fireplaces. The remains of a great repast were still on the table. The picked-over roasts, pocked with congealed fat, made him salivate with hunger. He hadn’t had meat or milk in over a month. Then he caught his parents’ anxious gaze. His mother was sagging against his father’s arm.
“I’ll do it, sir,” Janusz said. “You can count on me.”
The Valdane, his reluctance obvious, summoned his wizard and his son for the secret, illegal ceremony.
Not long after, the Valdane and his wife died suddenly. It hadn’t taken long to discover the true tenor of the new Valdane’s young soul. Janusz gave up hope of wearing the white robes someday.
A few years after that, as mage and the new Valdane were entering manhood, Janusz had added a hefty dose of poison to the Valdane’s ale and watched carefully as his blood twin quaffed the drink. But it had been Janusz, not the Valdane, who had grabbed at his throat and collapsed to the floor, writhing on the flagstones.
The young Valdane watched from his chair at the dining table. “Someone see to my mage, please,” he announced dispassionately. “He appears to have drunk something that disagrees with him.”
Then he leaned toward Janusz, his eyes chips of flint, and whispered, “Or maybe I did, eh, Janusz?” At that time, Janusz had known the bloodlink had cursed him forever. The mage would suffer what the Valdane deserved. Gasping, Janusz ordered the antidote to the poison, but he came close to death. Thus had begun Janusz’s deterioration, even as the Valdane continued to boast the health of a young man.
“I cannot kill him,” the mage had whispered in agony that night, “for I will die instead.” And the Valdane would be left to torment, unchecked, all who opposed him.
Janusz’s family died only two weeks after his failed attempt on the Valdane’s life.
The fire that killed Janusz’s family had been an accident, according to the Kernish reeve who investigated the tragedy. Janusz’s parents hadn’t cleaned the flue in ages; the deposits from years of wood fires had ignited, showering sparks on the tinder-dry roof. Or so the reeve, who owed his job and life to the Valdane, had informed Janusz.
Janusz hadn’t seen the point in pressing the man for further explanation. He didn’t ask the reeve how the door of the hut had come to be barricaded the night the family died. The neighbors who had rushed to his family’s aid told him they couldn’t pry the entrance open. They could only cover their ears as the trapped family screamed from within, engulfed by the inferno.
The message wasn’t lost on the mage. Over the next decades, Janusz wore himself ragged protecting his leader—and thus himself. Three times the Valdane’s enemies had attempted to kill the ruler, twice by poison and once by knife. Each time it was the mage who had cried out and collapsed. Each time the Valdane had emerged unscathed, able to slay the attacker. Stories were whispered throughout Kern that the Valdane was immortal, that the rumor of a bloodlink was true. The peasants watched the mage, and hate burned in their worn faces, but none dared attack a spell-caster of Janusz’s repute. The Valdane was remorseless in his pursuit of those who opposed him. One by one his enemies died of strange illnesses or simply disappeared in the night. Eventually no one was left in the region who would stand against him—until the Valdane turned his eyes toward the lands of the Meir.
Chapter 11
The Owl and Kitiara
TWIGS AND BRAMBLES CAUGHT AT KITIARA’S GATHERED blouse and scratched the leather of her leggings. The air around her shivered with oaths. She was well aware that out in the darkness, shadowless forms watched and waited, but so far they had done no more than mark her every move. Her saddle pack, slung across her back, hampered her movements, but she slashed undaunted at the clinging tentacles of plants with her sword and dagger.
The darkness had eased a bit, as though Solinari were rising behind the clouds. The moon, even weakened as it was, provided enough light for Kitiara to see a few feet, at least, to each side. Trees bent like crones before and behind her. The ominous sound of breathing came to her, sighing like the wind.
Caven Mackid would have said she was mad, attempting this alone. Tanis would have advised her to wait until morning. Wode would have grinned in glee at her present discomfiture.
But they were all dead. And Kitiara was journeying through Darken Wood—looking for the way out—at night.
Motionless, she gazed at the rocky ridge close on her left, then toward what she sensed was a valley off to her right. It was too dark to see much detail, but she pushed on, following what looked like a path, even though the trail that had brought her and the other three into Darken Wood had vanished. Branches and vines pressed around her once more. Reflexively, Kitiara brushed the tendril of a vine away from her face.
Another spasm of dizziness left her drenched with sweat. “By the gods,” she murmured, “what ailment have I picked up? Or have I been bewitched?” She waited for the moment of weakness to pass. She was covered with scratches; her back itched from sweat and dust. Thorns had pulled threads from her blouse, ripping holes into it. Blood oozed from a long scratch on her right cheek, skirting her eye.
Suddenly something stood in front of her on the path. She nudged it with her sword. It looked like a gigantic tumbleweed. Surely a good push would send it cascading into the valley below. She nudged the tangled ball with one hand, then, when it seemed unaccountably fixed in place, put one shoulder to it and pushed. Instantly she realized her error. Hundreds of tiny hooks fastened onto the front of her shirt. Tendrils twitched at her ankles, at her wrists. One tentative, quivering tendril tickled the base of her throat. She tried to pull back from the brambles. The tendril at her neck nevertheless moved along her jugular vein.
With an oath, Kitiara slashed into the brambles—were they thicker than before?—with her sword, and the vegetation fell back. “Ah,” she murmured. “So you can be defeated.” She stepped again toward the brambles and smiled to see the tangle move away from her.
Then Kitiara took another step, and the bramble, the path, the ridge, and the valley all vanished. The night, in the same instant, became darker, as though Solinari had been a candle, suddenly snuffed out. She reached her left hand forward and moved her dagger carefully back and forth. The point clinked against something hard, something tall—too smooth for rock. Holding her sword ready, Kitiara sheathed the dagger and reached out again with a bare hand. Her fingers touched something smooth and hard, traced a curve, found a wavy ridge, and followed it—to what was unmistakably a boot.
It was the stone statue that Caven and Maleficent had become.
Kitiara was back in the clearing with her companions.
Undaunted, Kitiara set off again for Haven, on a different path this time. An hour later, the swordswoman encountered the same tangle of burrs and weeds and landed back in the clearing again.
Then Kitiara, her jaw set with anger, sat down, sword across her knees, her back to a tree, to wait for dawn. Within moments, despite her vow of vigilance, she was fast asleep.
Perhaps a sixth sense warned her. Perhaps she awakened because of the intense emotions brought on by her dream, in which her dead mother stood in the middle of a bridge calling to her. At any rate, opening her eyes to slits, Kitiara tried to pierce the darkness around her, but she lacked the half-elf’s nightvision. The darkness was opaque to her all-too-human eyes.
Inwardly she cursed her unfounded weakness. Kitiara Uth Matar did not fall asleep on watch. She had no way of knowing how much time had passed. Moving as though she were still asleep and merely finding a more comfortable position, she shifted a bit against the oak, letting her right hand drop to the earth, as near her sword’s hilt as she could manage. She studied her surroundings surreptitiously.
Pairs of greenish lights glowed from the underbrush. Lightning bugs, she thought, even as she realized that the beetles didn’t travel in pairs. She peered closely at one set of lights. Another wichtlin? The lights blinked. The wicht
lin that had killed her companions certainly had not blinked.
Other pairs of eyes joined the first, and then more, until dozens of fiery orbs watched, fixed on her. Hearing no new sound, Kitiara finally rose cautiously to her feet, catching up her sword and shaking her head to clear it of the cloud of exhaustion that had seemed, in the last few days, to descend on her all too often. Was she ill again? Or had the wichtlin poisoned her after all?
Hundreds of lights now peered from the darkness around her. Teardrop-shaped green eyes. Round gold ones, with pupils shaped like diamonds. Horribly, a few single eyes. The shining orbs pressed toward her. Again she heard indistinct breathing. Were the woods themselves inhaling and exhaling? She cast the thought away.
Yet the creatures seemed to come only so close, and no more. Kitiara detected an odor—the sharp scent of sweat, which in anyone else she would have called the scent of fear. Her own fear? But Kitiara never admitted to fear.
Why in the Abyss did the things hold back? Why didn’t they attack? They’d lost the element of surprise, but clearly they outnumbered her.
They fear me. With good reason, I might add.
The words came into Kitiara’s head unbidden. The magic that had dispelled the wichtlin, the ettin’s presence, the ice jewels in her pack—all pointed in one direction. Her voice hissed. “Janusz? If it is you, show yourself, you coward.”
There was no answer, merely a muffled gasp—from where, Kitiara couldn’t tell. The Valdane’s mage, who certainly had more reason than anyone to plot revenge against her, would not have answered thusly. Therefore the presence was someone else.
Kitiara gazed around her at the pinpoints of eyes.
No. Up here, Captain Uth Matar.
Keeping her sword ready, Kitiara pivoted and peered into the branches of the aged oak above her. At first she saw nothing in the darkness. But then two horizontal slits appeared in the murk high above her. They opened, curved, and curved still more until she was gazing at two circular orange shapes the size of saucers. Within each flaming circle floated a smaller orb, as black as the night around her. As she watched, the orange circles narrowed to thin bands, and the black orbs within—the creature’s pupils, she realized—dilated. The thing was studying her, by the gods! But what was it?
You’ll see me better with your eyes closed, my dear captain. Look into your heart, Kitiara Uth Matar. Its message is plain, even when the eyes play tricks.
“What idiocy is this?” Kitiara cried. “Show yourself, vermin!”
Vermin? I?
At that moment, she heard a faint buzzing. “Are you a giant hornet? A venomous bee?” she demanded. Yet those creatures would hardly be about at night, and certainly they wouldn’t be hovering in a tree making conversation with a human. She pulled her dagger with her left hand. Her right already held her sword. Kitiara backpedaled into the clearing, away from the danger.
Put away your puny weapons, Kitiara Uth Matar.
“Don’t be ridiculous, creature.”
We are no threat—to you, at least.
“I’ll decide that. Show yourself. Now.”
A long silence, and more buzzing. Finally Kitiara sensed a whooshing, like an otherworldly sigh.
You are rude, human. I should abandon you here with the undead and your pathetic, ensorcelled friends. But that might hasten your own death, which I have promised to prevent—for the time being, at least. But do try to stay on my good side, Captain.
Kitiara had stopped listening halfway through. “Ensorcelled? Tanis …? So they’re not dead?”
You are so easily fooled, human. I said you trust your eyes too much.
“Show yourself, monster.”
There was a sudden ruffling noise above her, as though something large had fluffed out its feathers in a sudden huff. Then the air warped around her and wind buffeted her—the beating of wings, she realized. A screech like a banshee’s rent the darkness. “Oh, by the gods,” Kitiara said dismissively, letting the point of her sword drop. “You’re just a big, dumb bird.”
There was more buzzing from above. The creature screeched again. The tree creaked as the thing shifted from clawed foot to clawed foot. Then silence reigned, broken only by that strong buzzing that seemed trapped inside Kit’s head. Finally a new voice sounded, a woman’s voice, threaded with warmth and humor. “I fear you’ve alienated my companion, Kitiara Uth Matar.”
“I’ve heard this voice before. Show yourself.”
A pause. “Shirak.” A glow emanated through the clearing. A huge owl, as tall as two men from ear tufts to stubby tail and obviously piqued, glared down at the swordswoman. “A giant owl,” Kitiara said softly. “I’ve heard of your kind. Yet you speak Common and have some magical ability, which I’d not thought possible.”
A dark human face with delicate features peered over the side of the bird’s wing. “You are in Darken Wood. And my friend Xanthar is extraordinary in many ways,” the woman said softly. Even in the greenish magelight, Kitiara could see that her eyes were startlingly blue.
“I know you,” the swordswoman said slowly. “You were a maid to Dreena ten Valdane. And a magic-user, if I recall. But I do not recall blue eyes.”
“Lida Tenaka,” the woman whispered. Kitiara could barely hear her next words. “I have come looking for you, Kitiara Uth Matar.”
The owl sprang into the air, spread his wings, and landed, astonishingly softly for one so large, between the frozen forms of Tanis and Caven. Then the owl extended a wing, and Lida Tenaka glided gracefully down its feathered surface to the ground. For all her delicacy, she seemed comfortable being in Darken Wood at night. Kitiara studied her but didn’t sheath her sword. This Lida Tenaka might be an apparition, a manifestation of some evil that had tunneled into Kitiara’s consciousness as she slept. There was no proof that this slim, robed woman was the real Lida Tenaka. Kitiara observed her carefully.
Over her shoulder she carried a large drawstring bag, heavy from the looks of it, the leather thongs that kept it closed gathered into a knot. The sack showed the outline of a large circular object, appearing to be flat on one side, and, when the woman’s movements caused the contents to shift, convex on the other side. The woman’s face was expressionless, her lively eyes the only sign of humanity in her somber face. But her voice was kind. “Xanthar and I have flown long hours looking for you, Captain Uth Matar. I am glad to have finally found you.”
Kitiara barked her questions. “You have magic? The owl has magic?”
Lida Tenaka nodded toward the bird, hair rippling against her robe. “Xanthar controls certain powers. He can use telepathy, within a certain range and with certain types of creatures—mainly humans and other giant owls. And as you can attest, he can communicate his thoughts to other sentient creatures.”
“Sentient creatures,” Kitiara repeated. It sounded like an insult.
“Thinking creatures.”
“Can he read minds?”
Lida shrugged. “To a very limited extent, he can tell what others are thinking.”
“The skill comes slowly, with long, long practice,” the bird interrupted gruffly.
“Can he revive my friends? Can you?” Quickly she told them about the wichtlin and her friends’ fates.
The owl and the mage exchanged looks; Kitiara sensed that they weren’t being completely frank with her. “Can you or not?” she demanded.
“They are dreaming, I believe,” Xanthar said, his voice a husky whisper. Lida cast him a startled look, but neither explained.
Lida spoke slowly. “Whether I can help them depends on how they were put under the spell of magic and by whom. It’s difficult for one mage to offset the spells of another.”
“But you will try.”
“Will you help me in turn?” the mage asked.
Kitiara looked away. Her gaze fell on the ensorcelled Tanis, his body frozen in midaction. Lida’s green magelight made him seem almost alive. For a moment, she thought the half-elf’s almond-shaped eyes flickered her way. A warning?
“I’ll consider helping you,” Kitiara finally said. “That is all I care to promise.”
The owl finally spoke, its voice thick with sarcasm. “An interesting attitude, Captain, considering that it is you, not us, trapped alone in Darken Wood,” he drawled.
“Xanthar,” Lida said warningly. The owl snorted and turned his back on them both.
Moving around the owl, caressing his feathered shoulder, Lida stepped over to Caven. She placed slender hands on Maleficent’s withers and closed her eyes. After a time, she opened them again and began to speak. “I cannot—”
“Yes, you can, Lida.” The owl interrupted suddenly, urgently. “Use a dispel ensorcellment incantation.”
“A … But there’s no …” The owl’s warning look stopped Lida. She frowned. The owl gazed directly at her, and as the silence lengthened and Lida’s eyes widened in sudden shock, Kitiara realized that Xanthar was speaking telepathically to the dark-skinned woman. Finally Lida nodded. “All right, Xanthar. I’m glad you suggested that. It might work.”
“Can’t hurt, at any rate,” the owl muttered with a nasty glance at Kitiara. “After all, they’re practically dead now. How much worse can it get? Although I suppose being undead …”
“Wait!” Kitiara burst out. “Don’t!”
The owl inserted himself between her and Lida. Kitiara considered running him through, but instead she found herself gazing directly into his eyes. Don’t even consider it, human. The edges of his huge beak, she noticed, were as sharp as any sword’s tip. Kitiara stepped back warily, peering around the bird.
Lida was standing before Maleficent. She stroked the animal’s flank, murmuring strange syllables and scattering pinches of gray powder from a pouch. Then she moved to Wode and his mount and did the same. Finally she turned her attention to the half-elf. At last she stepped back and stood beside Xanthar.
“Stand back,” Lida warned Kitiara. “The three have lost no time. They will believe they’re still fighting the wichtlin.” She raised her arms dramatically, threw her head back, and chanted. Kitiara frowned again.